A few minutes with... Scott Franzke

PATRICK BERKERY

Friday

May 27, 2011 at 12:01 AMMay 27, 2011 at 8:13 AM

Scott Franzke's measured cadence and bone-dry wit might be similar to other members of the post-Dan Patrick and Joe Buck generation of sports broadcasters. But the Phillies radio play-by-play man isn't some detached new school wise guy, crow-barring in one-liners and wink-wink, nudge-nudge observations each time there's a lull in the action.

Franzke is a scene-setting play-by-play man from baseball's old-school. He's fully engaged at all times, whether he's talking his broadcast partner Larry Andersen off the ledge after another blown call by an ump, or calling some truly momentous event in Phillies history – the number of which he's been behind the mic for is staggering given his relatively short tenure with the team.

It will be one year ago Sunday that Franzke called what was probably – up to this point – the most amazing of those momentous events: Roy Halladay's perfect game in Florida against the Marlins. Phils-ville caught up with Franzke during his drive to Citizens Bank Park Wednesday afternoon to discuss Halladay's perfect game, and some of his other memorable moments behind the mic with the Phillies. Little did he know he'd be part of another one that evening/early Thursday morning when the Phillies and Reds would play 19 innings and utility infielder Wilson Valdez would end up as the winning pitcher.

How soon into Halladay's perfect game did you get a vibe for what was happening and what potentially could happen?

You get into the 4th and 5th , especially a guy of Halladay's a caliber, you realize what kind of stuff he's got. By the 6th, you're pretty much full-on aware, you can start thinking about it for real. I think it was after the 6th I sent a text to my wife and told her she should probably listen.

There's protocol on the bench, in the living room, and at the bar, for what not to do during no-hitters. What's the protocol in the booth?

The protocol is to do the game. That means telling everybody it's a perfect game or a no-hitter. If they're listening on the radio, there's a 99 percent certainty that they're in their car. They're not looking at a stat box or a line score. Larry and I had conversations about it before. There were some games where Hamels had taken no-hitters deep into the game. You have to mention it. There's literally no room for superstitions. (It was) just the two of us and our engineer in a tiny little booth. There was nowhere to move even if we wanted to. By that point in the game, you've got stuff all over the desk – paper, stats, notes, whatever you might have had organized at the start is a disaster by this point. You're trying to make sure you're on top of each pitch. And then I just wanted to make sure I had the right number of perfect games in Major League history. I was trying to dig through the books – we don't have anybody to do that for us.

What was Larry like as the game was unfolding?

He was really nervous, as I remember. He even said on the air how nervous he was for Roy. He still carries with him some of those player-in-dugout superstitions. My having to (acknowledge the chance of a perfect game) inherently made him nervous. We were both nervous, mostly nervous for Roy as it got into the 8th and 9th.

Had you called any no-hitters before?

When I was broadcasting for the Kane County Cougars (then the Marlins Single A affiliate) I did four. But only one of them was thrown by our team. It was interrupted by a long rain delay, so it was actually a combined no hitter – very odd. And then we had three against us in one year, and two in the same four-game series, believe it or not. One of them was thrown by J.J. Putz, but I think he walked 8 or 9 guys. It was a real A.J. Burnett kind of no-hitter. And growing up as a kid, I'd seen Nolan Ryan's 6th and 7th. Those were big deals for me as a Rangers fan.

In your short time with the Phillies you've made some pretty memorable calls. Is there one that sticks out to you like 'I really nailed the call and captured the moment on that one?'

Some of the bigger ones, I've been kind of hard on myself probably. But one that I will say that I liked - and not really for the way that I said it - was when Eric Bruntlett turned that unassisted triple play (in 2009). That one always stands out to me. Like the perfect game, it's a rare thing to have happen - to have it be unassisted. What I was most excited about afterwards was that I got all three outs in the correct order. Sometimes you talk ahead of yourself, faster than you really should. So when I listened back to it I said, 'Okay, I got them in the right order.'

An unassisted triple play is one of the toughest calls there is. You have to be certain that you saw what you think you saw. There are a lot of things going on in the blink of an eye.

Exactly. And I just remember that being the feeling after it happened. This stunning, abrupt end to a ballgame it looked like the Mets might come back and win. And then all of the sudden that game's over. We had Eric on the post-game show and he said that same thing. He wasn't sure and had to stand there a minute to confirm the he caught it, touched the base, and tagged the guy for all three outs.

You've obviously had bigger moments. Any of those stand out?

The Rollins double against Broxton (in the 2009 NLCS), that's one a lot of people have brought up to me.

That call is a perfect of example of why just anyone can't be a broadcaster. Most people's reaction to that would've been something along the lines of 'They're going to win this (blanking) game!'

(Laughing) Yeah, well we have similar reactions. I guess we just become better gatekeepers along the way.

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